Guest Blog While Leisha's on Vacation

Hello, my name is Jonene Ficklin (aka: thewonderfulobsessions.blogspot.com) , and my good friend, Leisha, invited me to guest blog today, while she is 3,000 miles away in lovely, balmy Hawaii. I happen to be a fan of both Leisha, and Hawaii, so this is an honor.

Now, Leisha isn’t your run-of-the-mill vacationer. And as she hinted last week, she tends to gain more adventures than she plans for:

http://leishamaw.blogspot.com/2011/05/top-three-things-not-to-do-in-hawaii.html

So in her honor, here are the top 10 things I hope she is/ or is not doing this time in Hawaii:

Let’s hit what I hope she’s NOT experiencing first:

1. NOT Surfing the Big One. I happen to know she got a little practice with speed, running, and adrenaline on a long board last week. The good news is she survived. The bad news is, I hear any surfing close-encounters-with-death tend to be addictive.

2. NOT doing the Wash Machine. Again. (See her blog from last week. By the way, the Wash Machine is a surfing term for getting spun around and around underwater by a wave.)

3. NOT having coqui frogs singing outside her window.  I’m told it’s like being surrounded by a preschool class of three-year-olds with whistles. If you’d like to experience it for yourself, check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Ic_3uGzCE&feature=related

4. NOT forgetting sunblock the first day out. Nothing kills a vacation faster than skin the temperature/color of a forge. And although people get paid to move like a robot over there, it’s no fun to do when it’s out of dire necessity.

5. NOT trying the chocolate covered squid. Yes, it is made AND sold AND obviously bought AND eaten there. I know we’re supposed to be brave and try new things, but this one is just plain wrong – especially when chocolate covered macadamia nuts are sold right next to it.

So, here’s what I hope she IS doing:

6. Entering a chicken chasing contest. Apparently, imported mongooses (I checked just to be sure the proper plural term isn’t mongeese – and it’s not) decimated the wild chicken population on all the Hawaiian islands except Kauai. The scuttlebutt is, that the farmers brought them over to kill off rats infesting their fields. When the first batch of mongooses reached Kauai, as they were being offloaded from the ship, one bit a sailor. He chucked all the mongooses into the sea. And nowadays, tourists are surprised to see feral chickens everywhere they go. Chicken chasing has become an official tourist pastime.

7. Trying Hamura Saimin or a Loco Moco. I know these sound like a sneeze, but they’re actually local specialty foods. Hamura Saimin is a noodle and broth comfort dish, and a Loco Moco is (take a deep breath and keep an open mind) white rice, topped by a hamburger patty, topped by a fried egg, topped by brown gravy. I know it sounds crazy, but the locals swear by it. I guess in the 1960’s, some hungry teenagers asked the cook of a local restaurant to make them something quick, cheap, and filling. Voila: the Loco Moco was born. Over time, it’s evolved into a respectable dish, even tweaked and refined by the likes of famed Hawaii chef, Alan Wong.

8. Hiking (and no, not hang-gliding over) the Na Pali coast. Okay, every dinosaur, tropical adventure, and back-in-time movie shows shots of this dramatic landscape. And I really hope she remembers her camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj8cKlXcKWE

9. Taking hula lessons. I would pay BIG money to see any video footage of this.

10. Taking copious notes to be used in her next awesome book. By the way, if you haven’t noticed, Leisha is an amazing writer. So Leisha, have a great time, and come home in one piece – and bring a million pictures. I’m thinking her next blog will be one you won’t want to miss!